Catton Park
Posted: Sun May 17, 2015 7:34 pm
Well oomans, we're just back from our regular visit to a shoot on the Catton Hall Estate. The rifles have been cleaned and returned to the sett armoury, a bath, well laced with Radox, is running and we're sipping a nice glass of Merlot to round off a great day. Pull up a sandbag and we'll tell you about it...
We arrived at 08:30, just as the tea urn bubbled up and so we got the first brew of the day. Carl and the Catton Crew (a nicer bunch of oomans you couldn't hope to meet) were busy emplacing the last few targets and setting up the firing points. At Catton there is an air rifle range, a 50 m zero range and, scattered hither and thither in the valleys and fields, around 40 or 50 photo-realistic targets of foxes, boar, deer and rabbits at a wide variety of ranges from 10 to 250 mards. In an adjoining valley are some longer range targets - steel plates out to 450 mards that make a cracking "DING" when struck. We like those. There are also some potatoes strung on wires and many, many clays (bright orange, thankfully) scattered across the hillsides at 300 and 400 mards. Awesome SPLAT potentrial on the spuds... There is also a woodland walk with 4 firing points and a high seat from which there are some excellent and very challenging shots at deer, fox and boar targets - at ranges from 20 to 80 mards. Very difficult to see some of 'em, let alone hit them.
At 09:30 Carl gave the safety briefing and then we all wandered off to release our canned bangs. We took our 7.5mm K31, 6.5mm Carl Gustav and 7.62 Finnish M28/76 to the top valley and began to clang away at the steel plates in the 400 mard zone. We liked that. We were soon joined by a nice ooman with a Sako in 5.56mm topped with a bit of posh Zeiss glass. We popped a few Jaffa clays at 400m, as casually as we could using our 1905 Carl Gustav, aperture sights and firing standing unsupported (though with one of Sadlers nice leather slings). The ooman was impressed, particularly when he missed with his first 5 shots.
"Something wrong with this sight," he exclaimed.
We offered to swap over and were very impressed with his Zeiss sight. Pin sharp and with a ikkle red dot glowing in the centre. We rested the bipod on a hay bale and took five shots. Five Jaffa clays exploded in sequence.
"Nothing wrong we these sights" we exclaimed, smugger than a smuggler.
The ooman then took up our Charlie G and peered through the aperture.
"Where are the clays ? I can't see any."
"Those tiny orange dots are them," we said. "Just centre them in the aperture and squeeze the trigger.
"But they are tiny. And this thing is waving around all over the place."
No clays died in the ooman's emptying of the Charlie G's magazine.
We have to confess, we did like his Sako and Zeiss. It made clay dusting very easy...
We arrived at 08:30, just as the tea urn bubbled up and so we got the first brew of the day. Carl and the Catton Crew (a nicer bunch of oomans you couldn't hope to meet) were busy emplacing the last few targets and setting up the firing points. At Catton there is an air rifle range, a 50 m zero range and, scattered hither and thither in the valleys and fields, around 40 or 50 photo-realistic targets of foxes, boar, deer and rabbits at a wide variety of ranges from 10 to 250 mards. In an adjoining valley are some longer range targets - steel plates out to 450 mards that make a cracking "DING" when struck. We like those. There are also some potatoes strung on wires and many, many clays (bright orange, thankfully) scattered across the hillsides at 300 and 400 mards. Awesome SPLAT potentrial on the spuds... There is also a woodland walk with 4 firing points and a high seat from which there are some excellent and very challenging shots at deer, fox and boar targets - at ranges from 20 to 80 mards. Very difficult to see some of 'em, let alone hit them.
At 09:30 Carl gave the safety briefing and then we all wandered off to release our canned bangs. We took our 7.5mm K31, 6.5mm Carl Gustav and 7.62 Finnish M28/76 to the top valley and began to clang away at the steel plates in the 400 mard zone. We liked that. We were soon joined by a nice ooman with a Sako in 5.56mm topped with a bit of posh Zeiss glass. We popped a few Jaffa clays at 400m, as casually as we could using our 1905 Carl Gustav, aperture sights and firing standing unsupported (though with one of Sadlers nice leather slings). The ooman was impressed, particularly when he missed with his first 5 shots.
"Something wrong with this sight," he exclaimed.
We offered to swap over and were very impressed with his Zeiss sight. Pin sharp and with a ikkle red dot glowing in the centre. We rested the bipod on a hay bale and took five shots. Five Jaffa clays exploded in sequence.
"Nothing wrong we these sights" we exclaimed, smugger than a smuggler.
The ooman then took up our Charlie G and peered through the aperture.
"Where are the clays ? I can't see any."
"Those tiny orange dots are them," we said. "Just centre them in the aperture and squeeze the trigger.
"But they are tiny. And this thing is waving around all over the place."
No clays died in the ooman's emptying of the Charlie G's magazine.
We have to confess, we did like his Sako and Zeiss. It made clay dusting very easy...